Walsall Council Employee Survey 2023

Employee survey results 2023

Results for the Walsall Council Corporate Employee Survey 2023 are available below.

When the survey took place

The employee survey launched on 5 October and closed on 10 November 2023. It takes place every other year and provides an important opportunity for employees to share their views and ideas about the council as an employer and as a place to work.

The survey was delivered by external market research company MEL Research on behalf of the council and the results are completely anonymous. At no time can individual responses be linked to a member of staff — either in any data or reports — provided to Walsall Council.

Read more about how your information will be processed and used.

Who took part in the survey

53% of employees (1,577 people) responded to the survey, up from 44% in 2021. Linked to the number of responses received, MEL Research kindly donated £750 to Samaritans Walsall & District.

All council employees, excluding agency, casual staff and those engaged inside IR35 were sent the survey by email or post. Those who are not council employees were sent a separate survey in November.

Survey for agency, casual staff and IR35

The views of all members of our workforce, including agency and casual staff and those working inside IR35, are equally important to us. There are however slight, but important differences in how these people are employed and therefore this group, most of which are agency staff, were sent a different survey on 30 November 2023. The survey closed on 12 January 2024.

Results for the Walsall survey for agency, casual staff and IR35 2023 are available below.

The survey achieved a 19% response rate with 102 responses. Like the employee survey, it covered a range of topics related to working at the council, job satisfaction, views on line management, teamwork, performance, communication, organisational change, wellbeing, health and safety, equality and diversity, and thoughts around their future at the council.

Findings of the two surveys have been used to shape further research in the form of staff focus groups and special sessions designed to explore and identify actions to address issues arising from the survey.

Staff focus groups

To provide a more in depth understanding of views, and building on the results of the surveys, a subsequent period of staff engagement took place place. Four staff focus groups (discussion groups of around 10 people) were held on 28 and 29 February 2024. The groups were facilitated by MEL research.

30 people took part representing all directorates. Topics of discussion included:

• Views on the results of the quantitative survey
• Perceptions of what makes Walsall Council a good place to work,
• Views on communication and information
• Your future at the council / recruitment and retention
• Line and senior management
• Direction of the council, vision and values
• A representative, healthy workforce

Findings from the focus groups are available below.

What happens next

Results from both surveys and the focus groups have been presented to and considered by the Corporate Management Team. All findings are being used to inform a refresh of our Organisational Development (OD) and Workforce strategies and to identify additional actions to help to address the concerns raised by staff.  The results are also helping identify areas of good practice that could be shared across directorates.

Thank you to everyone who took the time to fill in the survey and took part in the focus groups. Your views are incredibly valuable to us.